Ancient Aliens

Zeus,

***,

Thor,

For thousands of years

ancient**** have described gods

who came down from the heavens.

Always you have someone

who is descending from the sky

with loud noise,

with thundering, with fire, with smoke.

They would have come the most

powerful and magical place

possible... from the stars.

But just who were

these mystical beings that

ruled the skies with

supernatural powers?

David CHILDRESS: You could

wonder if these tales of Zeus's

thunderbolts, Thor's hammer,

if these weren't real weapons.

Did our ancient

ancestors create the gods from

their own imaginations?

Or did they simply report

events they believed to be true?

Our

ancestors misinterpreted

extraterrestrials as gods,

because that is was the only way

that they could explain away

what they witnessed.

Millions of people

around the world believe we have

been visited in the past by

extraterrestrial beings.

What if it were true?

Did ancient aliens really help

to shape our history?

And were the gods of

our ancestors actually visitors

from other worlds?

Truva, Turkey.

For over 150 years, this small

city has been the center of one

of the greatest archaeological

finds in modern history: the

possible discovery of the

legendary city of Troy.

In 1868, amateur archaeologist

Heinrich Schliemann, set out to

find what he believed was the

city that served as the basis

for the Trojan War, as described

in one of the greatest pieces of

classical literature, Homer's

epic poem, the Iliad.

Written in the eighth century

BC, Homer's Iliad tells the

tale of a great war, born of

feuding and jealous gods.

While most scholars believed

the story of the Trojan War was

a work of fiction, Schliemann

was determined to prove the

myth was a reality.

Richard RADER: Heinrich

Schliemann's discoveries rocked

the archaeological world.

Armed with his copy of the

Iliad, basically, he just

decided that he was gonna find

Troy.

And so he went and just dug a

big hole, and when he went, he

discovered the real Troy.

But if Homer's

story of Troy was true, what

would it say about other Greek

stories and myths?

Might those also be true?

Did powerful gods and goddesses

actually exist?

And, if so, where did they come

from?

Hellas, also known as Greece.

Each day, thousands of tourists

visit temples and monuments

built to honor the gods of

another age.

The Acropolis...

Delphi...

The Parthenon...

The Temple of Apollo.

These ancient sites reflect a

powerful reverence for beings

that supposedly ruled the world

thousands of years ago.

When you look at

many of the mythologies around

the world, they have these

stories of gods coming down from

the sky.

There's a beautiful

description of the way that the

gods move, like, when they kind

of come down to the Earth.

You get the sense of them

gliding down, but the way that

they move is kind of beyond

time.

It just kind of happens.

If the ancient

Greeks invented the stories of

gods as a primitive attempt to

explain their universe, how can

we account for similar deities

found in widely different

regions and cultures around the

globe?

Was it mere coincidence?

Or was there a common origin

for these gods, who supposedly

traveled to Earth from the

skies?

Jason MARTELL: The earliest

civilization we have, 3800 BC,

the Sumerians actually give us

visual descriptions of these

beings and speak of this time

that they lived amongst their

living gods.

They called their gods the

Annunaki and that term simply

meant "those who from heaven

come to earth."

Mythology is chock...

full of these episodes of gods

coming down to earth.

I mean, because mythology is so

interested in the relationship

between gods and humans, there

is necessarily gonna be a lot

of communication, and communion

between the two of them.

In his 2000 book,

Odyssey of the Gods, Erich Von

D Niken argues that the world's

sacred books are full of

descriptions, not of gods, but

of supernatural beings

interacting with humans.

Von D NIKEN: Some thousands

of years ago, when our

forefathers were still

primitive, some

extraterrestrials descended to

our planet.

And because of misunderstanding,

like of technology, our

forefathers thought that these

extraterrestrials must be some

gods.

Mount Olympus.

Greece's highest mountain.

According to ancient myths,

this site was the home of the

gods.

It was here, on Mount Olympus,

that Zeus sat on his throne and

determined the fate of

mortal men.

Whenever we have

references to Mount Olympus, it

is described to be this

magnificent palace on top of

Mount Olympus allegedly, and the

temple walls were always

gleaming of gold, or gleaming

with silver, and a lot of little

lights that they described as

jewels.

Well, if you look at that

from modern perspective,

what if that place... Mount

Olympus... wasn't necessarily the

top of a mountain, but it was,

in fact, a spaceship, because it

is described how sometimes there

was a big rumbling with Mount

Olympus, and the entire top

lifted off.

But if Mount

Olympus was home to alien

visitors, could Zeus have been

their leader?

According to both the Iliad and

the Odyssey, Zeus was often

depicted as wielding a

lightning bolt.